The present invention relates generally to a filter system and, more particularly, to a filter head for use with a filter system. Even more particularly, the present invention relates to a filter system having two or more filter heads interconnected to provide parallel-flow.
Filter systems are used to filter fluids such as water, oil and gasoline, for example, and the systems include at least one filter unit. A filter unit generally includes a filter head, a filter housing and a filter element. The filter housing contains the filter element and serves as both a pressure vessel and a sump or bowl. Contaminated fluid is pumped into the filter housing and through the filter element to produce filtered fluid. The filter head seals the filter element within the housing and includes an inlet for directing the contaminated fluid into the housing and an outlet for drawing the filtered fluid out of the filter element.
A particular existing filter head includes a base having a filter receptacle and a housing receptacle, an outer surface extending from the base, first and second bores extending inwardly from the outer surface, a first port connecting the first bore to the housing receptacle, and a second port connecting the second bore to the filter receptacle. Thus, the first port and the first bore comprise an inlet, while the second bore and the second port comprise an outlet.
Often, combining two or more filter units into a larger parallel-flow filter system is desirable such as, for example, when there is a large volume of contaminated fluid to be filtered or when the contaminated fluid is highly contaminated.
Normally a system is made by simply connecting two or more existing filter heads such that all inlets of the heads are connected to a single unfiltered-fluid line and all outlets of the heads are connected to a filtered-fluid line. While this configuration beneficially allows the use of the same filter heads for both single filter units and parallel-flow filter systems, the resulting parallel-flow filter system is relatively large and includes many conduit connections. Fewer conduit connection are preferred since conduit connections provide areas for potential leaks.
What is desired, accordingly is an improved filter head that can be easily stacked, or operatively connected, with other, similar, filter heads to form a parallel-flow filter system. What is also desired is a parallel-flow filter system that is more compact, has fewer conduit connections and is less expensive to produce than the above described existing system. What is further desired is a filter head that can be used in both a standalone filter unit and a parallel-flow filter system.